By FRED PUTNAM, JR. & JEFFREY CUNNINGHAM
Those of us in the beekeeping world often hear the question, “What can I do to help the bees?”
To that end, the Vermont Beekeepers Association (VBP) recently released a list of Vermont plants that are important to honeybees and other pollinators: Honey Bee Nectar and Pollen Plants of Vermont.
This list will be useful to homeowners, landowners, land managers, and consultants who wish to plant or retain trees, shrubs, and ground flora species that nourish honey bees, native bees, and other pollinators. The list includes mostly native plant species and agricultural plants but also includes a few ornamentals that can be helpful to pollinators. A university researcher developed this data. Recently, VBA members, Putnam and Cunningham, tailored it to Vermont.
Nectar and pollen are essential floral food resources that honeybees and other pollinators need to survive and thrive. Nectar’s high natural sugar content supplies pollinators with energy (and is the stuff from which honey is made!). Pollen provides the protein required to nourish bee larvae (brood) into adult bees to replace those lost to predators, parasitic mites, age, and to expand the bee populations. Honeybees have a special use for certain plant bud resins that they process into a gum called propolis to sanitize brood cells in wax comb and to seal cracks and holes in their hives.
It is important to provide pollinator forage as consistently as possible from March through October, especially plants that bloom in the late summer and early fall – a critical time for many pollinators. Build or maintain a habitat with flowering species appropriate to your area. Observe which plants grow on their own without being planted. Nurture a range of appropriate plant species that include flowering periods from spring through fall. Having abundant forage and propolis resources is critical to the nutritional health of honeybee colonies and enables native bees to prepare their progeny to survive winter.
Trees and shrubs also produce flowers, often in great volume high above the herbaceous flowers we see growing at ground level. Honeybees and native bees converge on trees in large numbers when they are blooming. Red maple and sugar maple trees are key sources of nectar and pollen very early in the season when honey bee colonies emerge from our long winter and are critically low on food stores – just as the maple sugaring season ends.
Vermont’s wooded valleys and mountain include American basswood, an important nectar source in June and July, usually preceded by the blooming of black locust trees. Aspen (poplars) and cottonwood trees (Populous spp.) are primary sources of bud resins that honey bees gather to make propolis. Native elderberry shrubs can be reintroduced to damp locations.
FLOWERS CONTAINS ABOUT 46% natural sugars which honey bees make into a tasty, light-colored honey.
Photo: Fred Putnam, Jr.
Encourage nectar-rich milkweeds for bees as well as monarch butterflies.
Discourage invasives like American bamboo, multiflora rose, and honeysuckle because even though useful to pollinators, they will displace/dominate natives and disrupt ecosystems.
The plants included in Honey Bee Nectar and Pollen Sources of Vermont are important to honey bees and other pollinators. The list includes data on sugar content in the nectar of some plant species and notes whether the plants provide nectar, pollen, or resin for propolis.”
Early spring species such as pussy willow, sumac, skunk cabbage, trout lily, and others are critical for species emerging from winter with food stores depleted. Spring and early summer species like dandelions, fruit trees, white clovers, alfalfas, locust trees, serviceberry, and basswood trees give a boost to colonies that are expanding to their summer peak numbers.
After the summer peak, honeybee populations naturally dwindle and reach their lowest level in mid-March. Having an ample natural food supply helps honey bee colonies grow large enough to have a better chance of surviving the 6 ½ months from first frost in the fall to last frost in the spring – a time during which little or no food is available outside the hive – also called the “winter dearth.”
By early September, the newly emerged young honeybees are physiologically different from the spring and summer bees. Honey bees born during the spring and summer live for about 6 weeks. Honey bees born starting early in the fall can live 5 or 6 months. These bees must be healthy to survive that long which is one reason that late summer forage is so important.
During the late summer and fall, honeybees and other pollinators rely heavily upon species such as goldenrod, Joe-Pye weed, asters, and others to build up food stores (honey and pollen) that will be needed by the longer-lived individuals who must survive winter. After the first frost, food is scarce or not available and it is often too cold for them to fly.
Pollinators include many creatures other than bees. Lady beetles, lacewings, bumblebees, butterflies, wasps, and certain bird species are also very effective pollinators. Some of these species actually feed on crop pests.
CATALPA IS NOT only a beautiful shade tree around your home. It blooms during May providing both nectar and pollen to many pollinators. Photo by Jeffrey Cunningham
To help honeybees and other pollinators, vegetation management guidelines should strive to retain, add, or emphasize species that are important food and propolis sources. Such guidelines include:
- When logging or other vegetation management is planned, retain a variety of tree and shrubby tree species used by pollinators. It is important to note that both honeybees and native bees occur at surprisingly high elevations – well above 2,500 feet – in Vermont’s mountains.
- Avoid mowing lawns and fields while species like dandelions, white clover, and goldenrod are blooming. Defer mowing milkweed until after the first frost in the fall.
- Plant or retain a variety of native pollinator-friendly species that bloom throughout the growing season.
- And, of course, refrain from using products containing pesticides since even sublethal low-level exposure to many pesticides can make the difference between a pollinator surviving through the winter or expiring.
The pollinators thank you for your help!
Fred Putnam, Jr. is a Vermont Certified Beekeeper and co-owner of Busy Bee Honey located in Brandon, Vermont, busybeehoneyvermont@gmail.com.
Jeffrey Cunningham is an Apiculturist, Consultant, and Manager/co-owner of Honeyhunter Apiaries and Farm in Putney Vermont, honhuntr@together.net.
Both are active members of the Vermont Beekeepers Association.
